Mr Comatose
by happymealsandcastiel
Summary: When Cas randomly loses consciousness during a hunt and doesn't wake up, the Winchesters have no choice but to take him to the hospital. Dean doesn't know what to do, and since he isn't sure that Cas is ever going to wake up, or even hears him, why not tell him everything?
1. Chapter 1

**A/n: Set somewhere in the ninth season after the vamp nest and Sheriff Mills. Yes some Destiel fluff and maybe some Sabriel fluff. I'm really busy right now, in reality I should have never started writing this, but I will try to write and update as much as possible. Reviews highly appreciated. And since I'm writing this as I go, any input as to storyline will be considered and again, appreciated. On with the story. **

**Chapter One **

~ ~ (TW: THIS CHAPTER HAS SOME SIGNS OF TORTURE)

It was a vamp nest in Colorado. Dean had gotten a call from one of the hunters there asking him and Sam to come and help if they could. It wasn't like they weren't busy, hell, they had angels to catch and a knight of hell on the loose, not to mention Crowley was off with the blade somewhere, but Dean knew they needed a break. Just a few weeks ago they had taken down another nest in Sioux Falls, so why not kill some more vamps?

Dean told the hunter that they would be there in a few days. Sam was off on another case, something about a witch in New York. He had made Dean stay behind, something about Dean needing to stay at the bunker just in case. Whatever that meant. While Sam was off, Dean had found that there wasn't much to do, other than drink and research. It wasn't all bad; with Sammy off his shoulder, he could drink all he wanted and the pain would just wash away with the booze.

Having a case was probably a good thing though, he knew there was a line and he didn't want to cross it with the drinking.

Since Sam was away, Dean had called up Cas and asked him if he wanted to come along, and to his surprise, he did. Cas said that he was near Colorado already, and he would meet him there.

And so here they were, standing outside a grey abandoned house, him, Cas, and the hunter who went by the name of Nathan.

"This is the place?" Dean asked, standing slightly in front of the other two, closer to the house.

"Yeah. I followed one of the grunts back to this place after they sucked out a truck driver," Nate says. Cas furrows his brow, but doesn't say anything. Dean looks at Nate and narrows his eyes.

"Sucked out?"

"You know, drank him. Sunk their teeth in him like straws and drank him like a blood slushie."

"Thanks for the image," Dean snorts. Cas watches the conversation, seeming to get more confused with each word that is said. He didn't say anything though, only looks at Dean as if asking him to explain. He doesn't though.

Sam had brought the Impala to New York with him, so Dean had taken another car from the garage in the bunker. It sits behind them on the road. It also doesn't have an arsenal of weapons in the trunk. Dean had been forced to bring the small amount of dead man's blood and a few knives that they had in the bunker.

Nate looks up at the house, studying the outside. It looks like a house you would find in a stereotypical horror movie. Broken window shutters, dead vines tracing up the siding, large holes in the roof. There is a black fence around the perimeter, encased in untrimmed hedges that look like they could suffocate someone. The only visible way in is through the front gate, but Nate decides the best way in will be over the fence at the side of the house.

"Great place for a witch's Halloween haunted house," Dean jokes. No one laughs.

The three of them stand there for a moment before Dean speaks up again.

"Well we're not getting anywhere just standing here are we?" says Dean. "Let's go get those sons of bitches." He grabs a knife from the car and starts toward the house without looking back to see if Cas and Nate were following him.

After he hopped over the fence he finds that where there is grass, it is long and it is wet, and it wraps around Dean's legs as he makes his way quietly through it. Soft grunts and the slap of shoes on hard mud tell him that Sam and Nate aren't far behind him.

"Ugh, what's that smell?" Nate says as they reach the side of the house. Dean can smell it too. He knows the smell of a body in decomp. Deciding not to say anything, he crouches against the wood panelling, motioning down with his hand so Cas and Nate do the same

Above Dean's shoulder there is a grimy window, and slowly Dean pokes his head up so he can see inside. Seeing no one, he cautiously crawls by under the window, holding a hand up so that Cas and Nate stay where they are. When he gets past the window and to the front side of the house, he waves his hand beside his face, palm towards his ear, still facing the front yard.

Dean is about to start forward when he realises that Cas and Nate haven't moved. He turns to look at them, giving a look of annoyance. Their faces are confused, probably something to do with the signaling.

"Get over here," Dean whispers harshly. He rolls his eyes and they shuffle over, looking at him expectantly. "Follow me."

They do and the three of them make their way to the front door, as there seems to be no other way in.

Dean stands on one side of the door, Cas and Nate waiting on the other side. Dean counts down to one with his fingers then turns to face the door and kicks it in with as much power as he can muster.

Splinters and pieces of wood fly out as the hinges break and the door clambers open before falling completely down. The door giving so easily causes Dean to temporarily lose his balance, stumbling through the door.

He regains it before Cas and Nate enter, and the three of them stand in the entranceway. There are no rooms on this floor, only stairs up and down.

"Nate, you're with me. Cas, go check upstairs and gank watcher you see. Make sure to slice the head clean off, okay?" Dean doesn't wait for either of them to say anything and takes the stairs down.

As soon as they get to the bottom of the stairs, the stench gets stronger, and Dean resists the urge to cover his mouth and nose with his hand and instead stay alert, shifting his knife in his hands. He can hear Nate behind him, making gagging noises from the smell.

The room is lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It casts an orange glow over the walls and floor. As Dean's eyes adjust, he sees that there are no doors. It is only that room. In the centre of the room is an alter made from chipped stone. There are symbols on top and on the sides. Long waxy candles stand on each side of the alter, and Dean immediately notices what's on it.

A woman, probably about 25 years old is stretched across the table like she had been tied to a Medieval rack. Her wrists and ankles are bound in rough rope. Her neck is sliced open, ear to ear, dripping blood down onto the alter and into the sigils on the side. She is entirely naked and etched into her bare chest is another sigil Dean doesn't recognise. He wishes Sam was there for a brief moment. He would know what it meant.

He tucks his knife into his belt, confident that there was no one there.

"This doesn't look like anything a vampire nest would have," Dean says. He goes to the alter and leans over the body, examining the sigil engraved in her chest, being careful not to step in any blood.

"That's cause they're not vampires."

"What do you mean?" Dean turns to face Nate and finds him standing there with a gun. He is sweating and the gun quivers in his hands.

"Really man?" says Dean. He takes a step toward Nate with his hands held up slightly in the air.

"N-no. You… you stay right there!" Nate shouts.

"Calm down Nate. Just tell me what's happening," Dean says as he looks around the room hoping to find something, anything, to distract him with.

"No. You don't understand Dean. You don't understand. But you will. You will soon." Nate's words are frantic. His eyes have gone big and they shift between Dean and the light above him.

"Ok, ok. That's fine. I'll just stay right here. You know, the aesthetics of this place are starting to grow on me. Now Nate, what do you mea-" Dean's words are cut short when a shot goes off. The room is suddenly very dark, and Dean drops to the ground. He fumbles for his knife.

Then he suddenly feels nothing.

When Dean wakes up he finds that he is lying in blood. The blood is cold and brown, and he quickly discovers that it is not his own. Gathering his bearings, he remembers the short showdown he had with Nate and remembers the room that he's in.

Instinctively, Dean grabs for his knife, but it is no longer tucked into his belt. Looking around the rooms, he soon notices that there is no one else there.

"Cas," he whispers.

Then he's up, and he's running up the steps, two at a time. His head is pounding and he's not sure why. He gets to the landing and turns to go up the other steps.

When he reaches the top floor his heart is beating quickly, and Dean feels the back of his head where the pounding gets worse with each heartbeat. There's a bump that feels like the size of his fist and he knows he probably has a concussion but he has to find Cas.

"Castiel!" he shouts. There's no answer. "Dammit."

Dean is more careful now, and searches the rooms for the angel. He doesn't want to come across Nate again. He was stupid last time. He hardly knows the hunter, met him once on a case in Texas. Damn Texas hunters. There's always something up with them.

He isn't sure what happened in the room, or how he ended up on the floor, but the bump on the back of his head tells him something. Dean can only assume that Nate must have shot out the light then hit him on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol when Dean had hit the ground.

And that time he had had a weapon. Dean was sure he could beat the punk in a fistfight, but he had a gun, so Dean wasn't sure he wanted to get that far.

Each door in the hallway opens with a squeak, causing Dean to flinch each time. All of the rooms are empty of both furniture and angels. The alter must have been the only thing in the entire house that rose up from the floor. Still, it made his search a lot easier.

Finally, he reaches the end of the hallway. There is only one door left and he still hasn't found Cas.

"Please Cas, be in there," he whispers. Taking a breath, he slowly turns the handle and creaks the door open.

"Oh thank God," Dean exclaims. Sprawled across the ground is Cas, face down and away from Dean.

Dean runs and leans next to the angel, shaking him.

"Cas, wake up." But Cas doesn't move.

"Aw come on man you're an angel for God's sake, pump up that mojo and get up." It doesn't even look like he's breathing. Does he need to breathe?

"Cas!"

**A/N Wow that was a long chapter sorry. The rest of the chapters will probably not be that long. I'm not sure when I'll update, but I should do. The rest of the chapters will be probably not as action-y, at least for a while. Please review! Any comments are welcome. **


	2. UPDATE: I SUCK

**A/n: OKAY here's the deal. I suck. I haven't even written a second chapter yet. I promised I would. But now everything has finally slowed down. I'm going to finish this story if it's the death of me. I suck, I know. Feel free to tell me how much I suck. In the meantime, you should go read my other fanfic ;) It's ok. Nevermind. Uh. I WILL WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER SOON! **


	3. The Hope

~ ~CHAPTER TWO~ ~

**A/N Thanks guys for the reviews! It means a lot. I made a dumb decision to write this during the busiest time of the year cause I was procrastinating doing any homework so I'm really sorry about how late I'm updating. And now I'm going to just do this. Since it's been so long, I'm going to end it with a one shot type deal. Wrap it all up in this chapter. Sorry I've made you wait this long. And thanks guys for saying I don't suck, even though I was (half) joking, it means a lot. Fuck it's been like half a year I'm so sorry.**

It's been several months now since Dean found Castiel lying unconscious in that house. Sam had returned from his hunt and the two of them had tracked down Nate and bound him up in some motel room until he told them exactly what was going on. It turns out that the two of them had been on some sort of "dead pool" and there was a bounty on their heads. After Nate had knocked Dean out with the intent to kill though, someone, something, else had found them.

Nate said the only thing he remembered after that was being told that if he ever touched the Winchesters, or their friends, again, he would suffer the consequences, whatever that meant. Nate didn't ask.

What that all meant is that Nate never got the chance to get to Cas. Whatever had happened to the angel was unknown to the hunter, and as hard as Sam and Dean tried, that was all they could get out of him.

After that they tracked down the issuer of the dead pool and snuffed him out. Just another demon looking to climb his way up the ladder of Hell. Ironically it was Crowley who ended up helping them in the end.

Anyway, this is where they ended up, team free will. Dean almost smiled as he remembered what he said once. The ex-blood junkie was back at the bunker, killing himself reading through every book he can find on angel curses, spells, and poisons. Mr. Comatose was living well up to his nickname. Dean looked at him desperately. He was thin, pale, sickly. He had been like this since Dean found him. When he carried him out of the house, he took him to the bunker at first. After Sam and Dean had spent about a month trying to find some supernatural way to heal him and failed, they brought him to this hospital, a sort of place to store him as they sought a "cure."

The hospital staff were beside themselves trying to find something wrong with him. According to them, nothing was physically wrong with Castiel. Yet here he was, wasting away.

The final member of the team, one dropout with six bucks to his name, hadn't left the angel's side. He slept at the hospital and was beginning to live there.

"You gotta tell me what's wrong, Cas. Somehow, tell me," says Dean for what seems like the hundredth time, gently squeezing the angel's hand between his own.

Dean looks around the room at the sort of nest that he's created. The TV is playing in front of Cas' bed, muted but the picture shows a news report of rioting and violence. Dean doesn't pay attention to it. It's only on because when the nurses come in they get concerned that Dean hasn't moved in several hours. He sits there and holds the angel's hands, staring blankly at the television. He sits on an uncomfortable chair angled toward the bed.

A blanket is sprawled over his lap, the only source of warmth he's felt in a while. A few weeks ago, Castiel's hands had become cold.

Cas doesn't respond to Dean's pleading and though he knew that nothing would happen, Dean couldn't help but feel disappointed by the lack of recognition from his angel. There had been days in the past months where Dean had talked and talked and whispered in Cas' ears until his voice grew hoarse and he would continue talking even though there were no more words coming out and he was only sobbing why couldn't he stop sobbing why couldn't he stop why can't it all stop?

Smoothing his thumb in circles on the back of Cas' hands Dean distracts himself by memorizing the shape of them. Every bump, every hair, every alcove his own hands explore.

A knock on the door makes Dean start.

"Yeah," he says hoarsely. This was a talking day and Dean couldn't feel the words in his mouth as any more than wisps of air.

The door opens and Sam walks in, closing the door behind him and leaning awkwardly against it.

"How are you doing, Dean?" he asks, concern clearly etched in his face. Deep lines crease the younger brother's forehead and dark circles hug the undersides of his eyes.

"Fine," Dean replies, suddenly aware that he is still holding Castiel's hand. Subtly retracting his own he turns to face Sam. Dean hadn't told Sam about the way he feels about Cas. Hell, he can't even tell himself. Sam doesn't say anything and instead walks towards Dean and places a hand gently on his shoulder.

Dean looks up at Sam, and stumbles to his feet. Before he can say anything or ask about the research, Sam pulls him towards him.

"It'll be okay, Dean. We'll find something, we always do."

"Thanks Sammy," says Dean, returning the hug. They stay like this for a minute or two. Dean isn't ready to let go even when they do and he feels a lump begin to form in his throat. He coughs and it goes away, though his gaze falls to the floor.

"What are we going to do, little brother?"

"Okay, I'm going to tell you something and I'm not sure if it's true and I don't want you to get your hopes up," Sam says quickly. Dean's eyes shoot up and pierce through Sam's.

"What is it?" he demands.

Sam pulls up a chair and sits in it, motioning for Dean to do the same. As soon as he does, Sam reminds him that it's not a secure lead and it could be nothing.

"Dammit Sam just say it."

"Right. As you know, I've called and tried to contact everyone we know about the situation. They don't know specifics but they know enough."

"I know that already. That's the first thing we tried when we brought Cas to the bunker. No one knew anything and no one seems willing to help us. No one owes us any favours," Dean interjects.

"Sure, but let me finish," Sam replies a little annoyed. Dean leans back in his chair and nods. His voice is suffering from all the talking. It'll be nice to listen for once.

"One of our contacts called me back this morning. There's a rumour going around that a certain Trickster is back," Sam starts.

"Gabriel?" Dean butts in again. "But he was killed by Lucifer."

"I know Dean dammit listen."

"Sorry."

The steady beeping of Castiel's heart monitor fills the silence between the sections of speaking. Dean looks over at the angel and sighs before looking back to his brother.

"It's okay, I know you're anxious. Anyway the rumour is that he's back somehow. No one really knows how or anything but several hunters have claimed to have seen him and/or followed cases that follow the Trickster's old MO. It's all lining up to be this way Dean."

Dean stared at Sam for a little, trying to piece together what he was trying to say.

"Let's say, theoretically speaking, that Gabe was back, alright? How the Hell does this help us at all?" he manages.

"Gabriel and Cas are brothers, right? Look at us, Dean. Brothers do anything for one another. They do. I bet you, archangel as he is, Gabriel will know some way to help Cas. And we will find him." Dean still stares at Sam. There isn't a real chance that this will help them at all, and Dean knows this. If Sam had proposed this a few months ago, Dean would have blown him off quickly.

Was Gabriel not still the same angel that had killed him hundreds of times for his own sick enjoyment and made Sam watch him die over and over again? Dean still wasn't sure that this had all happened, but he was sure as Hell that Gabe had done something to his brother, and he wasn't soon to forget it, no matter what he did to fight Lucifer.

Still. It had been months and Castiel was getting worse. This angel, this Trickster, might just be their only hope. Dean's stare refocused on Sam.

"Think he's still got angel radio?"

**A/N: I apologize profusely for the wait in the update. But I promised it and here it is. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long. Thanks for sticking by me. **


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